


It's Nice to Meet Her

by Iliketalkingtoyou



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 02:59:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12974379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iliketalkingtoyou/pseuds/Iliketalkingtoyou
Summary: lets go back to before the start. lets play pretend that series 3 never happened and couldn't possibly ever happen





	It's Nice to Meet Her

Finn zipped up his leather jacket and popped the collar to keep the worst of the wind from his face. He kept his hands stuffed tight in his jacket’s pockets, he marched on against the wind like he was battling with an invisible army.

He should have taken the car, but it had been Chop’s idea to have few a drinks before Finn had gone to see Stacey. Courage, Chop had annoyingly argued, was an excuse for alcohol, and Finn had needed as much - ahem - courage as possible before facing that disaster. It had been so easy to stay with Stacey that their relationship had lasted far longer than anyone really expected. It was very simple, Finn had learned, to be in a relationship with someone you don’t care about. It was not simple, however, to break up with them, yet Finn had gotten drunk enough to do so and was walking home with only the December night’s weather as company.

Clouds had started gathering above Finn, he stayed oblivious and he kept his head down and kicked his scuffed boots.

The rain started only as he neared the bridge. Fate must have been laughing at him, the dark night and the pouring rain were set to make it so difficult to see that he might fall off the bridge.

He was around half way across when he crashed straight into someone.

“What the fuck-” Finn exclaimed falling right into a puddle. His thighs were freezing; his whole body was shaking with the cold. He cursed again and stood.

He looked up and saw a girl in front of him.

She was soaked too.

“What are you just standing in the middle of a bridge for?” Finn spat. Ever the polite gentleman he was he emphasised his grumpy demeanour with a glare.

The girl threw up her hood before turning to cling to the edge of the railing.

So Finn shook his head and walked the rest of the way home, had a cuppa and slept soundly with a hot water bottle in his bed that night.

But, no of course he didn’t, because what would be the point of the story if Finn had?

Instead, Finn waited for an apology. When Finn realised he could be waiting all night for one he waited still.

Tugging his collar up to cover the tips of his freezing ears he asked, “Look, are you lost? Do you need me to get you a taxi or summat?” She didn’t move at all. Her fingers were tight around the railing. He leaned closer to continue, “I just passed a telephone box, we can call from there, if you want?” He leaned over the railing to see her expression, but her eyes were closed. “Hey!” He yelled over the rain, “Are you lost?”

The girl opened her eyes and turned to him. It was far too dark for Finn to see more than just her pale face. “No,” she said, firmly. “Please leave.”

The girl turned back to the road underneath the bridge, her fingers still tight.

“Are ya alrigh’?” He tried.

“Yeah,” she said, “Good, yeah. Fine. You can go.”

“Nah,” Finn scoffed. He leaned his back against the railings and crossed his legs in front of him, attempting to look as casual and comfortable as possible in the cold sharp rain. “It’s a nice night to stand here. Think I’ll stick around for a bit.”

The girl faced him again, but she doesn’t say anything.

Finn smiled at her, and as gently as he could he asked, “What’s your name?” The girl only stared at him with a frown. “I’m Finn.” The girl smiled then rolled her eyes at him. “D’you go to college?” He tried.

She ignored him again and stared back down to the road beneath them. Finn cannot read minds but would there be any other reason for a girl to be standing on the edge of a bridge on a dark winter night as it pours down with rain?

All his years at school, and all that shit about Pythagoras had taught him nothing about how to talk someone out of suicide.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you at college” He continued.

“I’m not at college yet.” She replied, sharply. “I’m supposed to start in September.”

“Supposed to?” He asked, but she simply kept looking at the cars whiz by below. “Is it Stamford city? That’s where I go. It’s not so bad really. Just don’t take history with Miss Tyler, she’s a righ’ bore.”

The girl flicked a look in his general direction, still too dark to tell what she was thinking.

“I don’t know you.” She said, quietly, “Why are you talking to me?”

Finn shrugged, “Because I want to.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m not leaving. What’s your name?” He asked again. The wind snarled around him for a moment then settled into a quiet growl.

“Rae.” She said, clear as day. Finn nodded and smiled at her again.

“Nice to meet you, Rae.”

Rae smiled at him and then her eyes went back down.

Finn pulled his hands out of his pockets, they are scrunched into fists to keep out the cold. He stretches and cracks them before placing one hand on one of the girl’s. “Hey, d’you fancy a cuppa?”

“No, s’alrigh’, think I’ll just go home.”

“Will you come back?”

Rae looked at Finn. He could see that her eyes were very dark. “I’ll walk ya home, if you want?”

“You don’t even know me?”

“I don’t have to. I just want out of the cold, to be honest.” Rae smiled. He placed his hand more firmly on hers until she let go of the railing, he did the same with the other hand.

“Where’d you live?” He asked, immediately shoving his hands back into his pocket. He can’t understand of Rae doesn’t already have frost bite.

Rae blinked at him. “Righ’ yeah. Down this way.”

She started walking away, and Finn hunched up against her. He purposely stepped around to put himself in between her and the edge of the bridge.

Tugging her hood forward, Rae sniffed. “I know I just met you,” she sniffed again, “But I just want to make sure that you won’t tell anyone about-” She waved her hand back at the bridge.

“Right,” Finn said as he scraped his boots against a lamppost, “Don’t worry, I won’t say anythin’.” He kicked another lamppost. It was quiet between them the entire way. They are two strangers who have met in what could only be described as the worst possible way for any two people to meet. What is there that is meant to be said? Finn is a 17 year old boy not a psychiatrist. “Let’s just get you home, alrigh’?” She nodded as a reply and tucked her hands into her sleeves.

Her house is a bit out of the way from his but he couldn’t blame the girl for that.

At her front door Finn watched her shake as she took keys from her pocket and she began crying as she stepped through into the hallway.

Not wanting to appear a creep Finn waited outside and asked, “Are your parents in?”

Rae shook her head. “S’alrigh. You can come in. I’ll put the kettle on.” He followed her into the kitchen, where there was a memo board with appointments scribbled all across. It seemed jarring to him to read that there were people in Rae’s life who just assumed that she would be there for the dentist next Thursday when the girl clearly had other ideas.

He sat on her front couch with the warmest cup of tea he had ever had when she said, “I already know who you are, actually. You used to go to my school.”

Guilt sat on Finn’s stomach from hearing that. “Really?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “It’s okay, it’s not like we ever spoke or anythin’.”

“Righ’.” Finn took a sip of the boiling tea. It had already warmed his hands, but was yet to get to the rest of him. It was a long silence before he could find it in himself to ask, “Are ya really not gonna to tell someone about what happened today?”

Rae shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m alrigh’.”

Finn frowned at her, “Well, obviously you’re not.”

“And obviously it has nothing to do with you.” She snapped.

Finn nodded and looked down at his half-drunk tea. “Right’. Think I’d better go.” She stayed silent so he put down his mug and walked down the hall. She followed after him. “Thanks for the tea.”

“No problem.” She said politely, but she wouldn’t look at him.

He opened the door, but couldn’t bring himself to leave without saying something. “Listen, d’you want my number or summat then you can call if-”

She looked horrified at the idea. “No. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s no bother. I’m not much of a talker but I can listen. I listened to my gran go on about Cliff Richard for ages last Sunday and I only, nearly fell asleep once.”

Rae laughed.

Finn had made Rae laugh.

“No, but thank you though.” She said, with a small smile. Finn still didn’t open the front door. He had to find something to say. It had been easy to give up communicating when he had realised that he was so terrible at it, but Finn had had enough of easy. Wasn’t that why he had broken up with Stacey?

“It’s too early.” He said when he found his voice. “It’s too early for you to be finished like that.” Rae looked at him and the look left him in a state of unease for a long time after he had left her house.

“Kids die all the time,” Rae murmured, suddenly. “And what have they ever done to deserve that? I just don’t think it’s fair for me to be sitting here with a life while other people are dying – especially when they haven’t finished their life yet.”

“And you’ve finished yours?” He asked.

Standing up to a stranger is far easier than standing up to those that we care about. Finn had found that we all can be so much more honest with strangers since we don’t need to protect them from the bad parts that live inside us.

Rae had found this too which is probably why Finn believed her when she said, “I’m not sure.”

“Don’t you want to find out if you’re done with it then?” He pressed.

“No.”

Finn grumbled. “Righ’, well, okay. Look, I don’t know what to tell you,” he took her hand and waited until she looked right at him, “But all I know is that there doesn’t have to be a million reasons for you stay, there just has to be one. Pick one thing, Rae. Just one. One reason to just keep going, one day at a time.”

“What if I can’t think of one?” she asked, she looked so small to him.

“Then you ring me, and I’ll think of one for you.”

Finn strode back into the kitchen where he had seen the notice board earlier, and he scrawled down his house number in the bottom corner.

Rae looked at him dubiously but he keep his gaze steady on her. “Ring me, alrigh’?” he smiled at her, hoping he made the face that his gran called “charming”.

Rae took the pen back off him and nodded slowly.

“Anytime, Rae, yeah?”

She rolled her eyes, “Righ’, yeah. Okay.”

She called him the next morning.


End file.
